camp

Camp

a place for the stationing of troops outside inhabited communities (usually in a sparse forest or grove), which is specially equipped depending on the mission to be performed.

Camps have been known since ancient times. A distinction was made between campaign and permanent camps. The latter were protected by a moat and a wall and were reinforced with palisades or stones and several rows of carts; some camps were surrounded by a thick wall with a moat flanked by towers. In combat, fortified camps served as combat positions for the army and places for storing food and ammunition. The art of setting up camps reached a high point of development in ancient Rome. Later other peoples began applying the Roman art of setting up camps.

In Russia rules of setting up and fortifying army camps were expounded for the first time between 1607 and 1621 in the Regulations on Army, Gunnery, and Other Affairs. Training camps appeared in Russia in the 17th century. Peter I was the first to decree that troops should spend some time in training camps. In the 17th and 18th centuries, when linear tactics predominated, troops were deployed in a camp in a linear combat order. Until the middle of the 19th century the choosing of a site and the setting up of camps was a separate branch of the art of warfare, called castrametation. In the second half of the 19th century the development of artillery and other means of destruction made it necessary to disperse the troops in combat, and camps lost their importance as fortified stations of troops.

The Soviet armed forces and armies of other states have training camps and training centers, which have a role to play in the combat training of troops under field conditions. For the training of troops camps are equipped with training fields, target ranges, firing grounds, and other facilities. When troops are stationed in camps and training centers, the special features of the routine garrison duty are determined by the corresponding regulations.

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